Author: Gritty Momma

I have a B.A. in English, Music, and Classical Studies from Hanover College, two darling boys, a wonderfully kind and supportive husband, a chronically hungry cat, and a penchant for wordy sentences. I write poems and stories; I teach Latin online; I'm a homeschool grad and plan to homeschool my own children. I have Ideas about Things.
Irrespective of all this, Jesus loves me.

I was moved and grateful for the words of a staunch and devout Catholic friend that I’ve made here, BeautyBeyondBones, in reference to the avalanche of horrifying news that has overtaken the Catholic church in the past few weeks. But I feel very strongly that she, and the rest of us who profess any form of the Christian faith, ought to know by now (or be emphatically reassured if we don’t) that this isn’t, in ANY degree, a problem primarily constrained to the Catholic form of worship.

“Although the decentralized nature of Protestantism makes statistics very hard to find, we’ve particularly found opportunities for abuse and cover-ups in three kinds of situations.

“(1) Some congregations have dominating pastors with unchecked authority.

“(2) Evangelical culture has a conference and lecture circuit with celebrities and quasi-celebrities who come to cities for weekend workshops and one-night lectures that provide opportunities to sin and go, leaving behind casualties.

“(3) Megachurch leaders face the ordinary temptations but also extraordinary pressure to cover up problems, knowing that a sniff of scandal will summon packs of critical reporters.”

“Mary Lou Davidson Redding, a retired editor of The Upper Room magazine, says she warned conference directors about Hensley for many years. Here’s her account: In the early 1990s at the Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference at Eastern Carolina State University, Hensley had tried to slip his hands onto her breasts while she was in a dormitory hall, stopping only when someone walked in on them. When Redding later told a friend what happened, that friend rolled her eyes and replied, ‘Oh, is he still doing that? He was supposed to stop.’

“More from Redding: ‘People knew his behavior, and he was still being invited to conferences.’ She decided to warn people about him. When she saw his name on a conference brochure, she called the directors to tell them about her experience with him. No director she warned ever disinvited him: ‘They overwhelmingly said to me they want their conference to be a success, that people are coming because he’s going to be there.'”

“The few cases mentioned in this story should highlight the fact that sexual abuse is not just a Catholic problem. It’s also a Protestant problem, and a deeply human one.

“Our investigations show that many churches and ministries have not always done a good job protecting and empowering the victims. As cries of #MeToo reverberate across the nation, so too have stories of #ChurchToo, in which men and women within evangelical churches voice their own tales of long-suppressed guilt, shame, and anguish. They say their trauma isn’t just from the violating act itself: Trauma festered when trusted church authorities failed to believe or protect them, failed to report the crime to legal authorities, failed to change the institutional culture that enables and minimizes the severity of sexual abuse.

“Yet because this issue has become so public, more and more churches are acknowledging the existence and severity of sexual abuse within their communities, as shown in many cases mentioned above. More churches are asking for help to help the vulnerable, so this could be a wake-up call for the Protestant world.”

Let it be so.

–GM

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So, there’s a reason I’ve not been around for months. A Very Good Reason. Which is actually a number of very good reasons piled together into one general Good Reason, which can be summed up thusly: I’m pregnant with our third child.

Having just bumped over the end of the first trimester milestone, I now feel this is reasonable to share with the Internet At Large, though most people in our circle of family and friends know by now.

Aside from that announcement, I’ve had no time, energy, motivation, or interest in or for blogging since late June, perhaps (in case you haven’t noticed, ha). I was physically miserable for months: quite literally lying in bed or flopped in a puddle on the couch for the vast majority of hours in a day, barely able to open my eyes at times for the nausea, sickened by just about every smell in the world, and utterly overwhelmed by the task list involved with moving into a much bigger house. Not to mention pretty much incapable of dealing with my two preschoolers for a number of weeks. Friends and family volunteered to come watch them for several hours out of each weekday for a number of weeks; were it not for this, we would not have survived, at least not without toxic dosage levels of TV (I jest, but truly, it would have been horrific).

On top of this I discovered that we had a stomach virus running through the house, which hit me VERY hard and explained a ton of horrible digestive issues… mostly after the fact… and then we got Hand Foot and Mouth Disease for the third time in two years.

We have had, as you might say, a Rough Time.

Starting in about week 12 or so, though, I finally, SUDDENLY began to drastically improve on the physical health front. The nausea wore off quite a bit and my energy levels started to rise again. I was able to take care of the boys myself and handle a few simple house chores on most weekdays. Now that I’m through week 14, I *almost* feel like myself again.

Aside from the drastic mood swings, unpredictable and horrific bouts of depression and severe irritability, perpetual gut-killing anxiety upon waking every morning, constant sentiments of misanthropy directed at myself and my immediate family members, and a soul-crushing reticence to being touched. This following about six weeks of serious depression straight, thanks to the severe health issues and accompanying beliefs of personal utter worthlessness and invalidity.

Aside from that, you know, I’m almost normal.

So, all that to say, this has been (is being) the worst pregnancy I’ve experienced, by far, and yesterday I hit my wit’s end.

I’ve been doing Christian counseling off and on (though it HAS been quite awhile since my last session) for the past several months, and that has been helpful, but it doesn’t really get to the underlying problems I have with trauma and depression and a number of other things and address them. Especially since I know, from the past two pregnancies, that I have at least a tendency to prenatal depression (I tend to get much better after birth but struggle a lot emotionally during pregnancy), I know that given the severity of what I’m encountering this time around, I need some serious, specialized professional help.

So I requested an appointment with a local practice yesterday and hope to hear back from them on Monday. I’m also hoping to connect with some sort of perinatal mental health support group in the area, based on the advice of a friend. And, yes, I’m going to talk to my doctor about medication, which I don’t fundamentally like the idea off, but I have a higher value for doing due diligence and addressing a problem holistically, and I acknowledge that there are many qualified experts out there that know a whole lot more about how to handle this problem than I do, both medically and therapeutically.

So, there you have it: my Life Update of the past few months.

I want to say, too, that I’ve been rather hesitant to say anything on here about the pregnancy because I know several lovely folk here who have struggled with infertility and infant mortality, etc. And I know every birth announcement must, on some level, sting for you; and I don’t want to compound anyone’s pain. I see you and love you, people, and I am sorry for the ache this necessarily causes in your hearts. But I knew it wasn’t something I could fail to bring up for forever… and, if I mentioned anything, I wanted to be frank about how this pregnancy has not been a walk in the park. This just can’t be a “rub my happiness in your face” post because that wouldn’t be at all honest. Yes, I am VERY grateful for this baby; we wanted at least three children and I feel like, Lord willing, we’ll be blessed with a warm bundle soon enough. But this pregnancy has all but totally convinced me that I NEVER want to carry a child again. Ever. So I don’t want anyone to look at me and think, “Oh, lucky her, there’s yet another perfectly blissful expectant mother… it makes me sick!” Because I am so far from anything blissful, content, or happy, it’s wretched. And I know many of you might resent that, too, because dang it, I get to HAVE a BABY–why aren’t I just jumping up and down for joy?!??! Well, I feel sick over that fact every day, too. I hate that I hate pregnancy. I feel like a total traitor of what it means to be a mother on this point. It seems pretty dang ungrateful to me, too, and I feel ashamed.

I’m sorry.

So I wanted you to see me struggle authentically, and not pretend to be anything else. I’m a pretty poor excuse for a mom, and a pregnant mom, at that. But I also hope you’ll see that I’m not content to stay there. It’s not worth it to wallow in physical or mental dysfunction when there’s help available. When there’s a better status quo that can be achieved.

So I will keep you posted on how my pursuit of that goes… and in the meantime, please pray for me. I need it, too.